


run to where no one can find us

by pallasjoanna



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Late Night Conversations, ML secret santa 2016, part introspection part banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 02:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9051265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasjoanna/pseuds/pallasjoanna
Summary: “My parents told me to never go with strangers,” Marinette says primly, but she snorts afterwards. “What about you? Try entering the front door for once, you know. Did you know we’ve got life-sized cardboard cutouts of Ladybug and Chat Noir—“
  “Oh, I definitely know that—“
  “—and it would definitely bring more customers in if you’d sign yours.”
  “Princess,” Chat gasps, bringing a hand to his heart in mock-hurt. “I feel so used.”
Marinette and Chat Noir, late night conversations on rooftop terraces, introspection, and things happening slowly.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Their_Destinys_Writer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Their_Destinys_Writer/gifts).



Marinette knows that some things are meant to happen slowly. Some things, like Marinette’s friendship with Alya and the rest of her class (except for Chloe because she’d rather eat Papillon’s crusty butterflies instead), having to deal with the responsibility of being Paris’s hero, realizing that she has a bit of a massive crush on Adrien—well, some things come like a lightning strike.

And then there are other things that come into your life on a dark and stormy night like a half-drowned cat caught in a heavy downpour. And by cat, she means Chat Noir, who doesn’t have any business being Chat Noir at that time of the night with no akumatized people running around. Chat Noir, who seems to like ignoring the weather channel and the fact that their superpowers can’t protect them from the common cold. By which she means that after hiding him in her room and after Chat got a taste of their bakery’s eclairs and a mug of hot chocolate, he’s started dropping by her rooftop terrace on a semi-regular basis, usually at a time when Marinette should be sleeping. Usually, she is not.

Marinette likes to think she can take most things in stride.

“Oh my god, does he know?” she asks, pacing the floor after the fifth time Chat visits. It’s one in the morning, but at least it’s a Saturday, so all in all, not a bad day for a freak out. “What if he’s just not telling me because he knows I’d react badly? Not that I’d react that badly, but Tikki—“

“I don’t think he does?” Tikki says with as much dignity as she can with cookie crumbs on her tiny cheeks. “For one, I think you would know if he knows. The both of you are really good defenders of Paris but, hm, sometimes neither of you are that… how do you say it, subtle.”

At another time—

“’Why do I keep hanging around you?’ You’re asking that?”

Chat is sprawled across her bedroom floor without an obvious care in the world, tossing one of her cushions into the air. Marinette turns around in her chair to face him. “I mean, I’m sure you have better things to do than hang around with civilians, right?” _And where are you gonna get all the camembert your kwami needs at this rate_ , she’d ask, but the mechanics of their Miraculous are definitely not public knowledge.

“It’s definitely the food,” Chat says, shit-eating grin visible from this angle.

Marinette swipes a cushion from the floor, walks over to him, and drops it squarely in his face. “Evicted.”

“Aw, princess, that’s no way to treat this poor kitty~” Chat hops to his feet with all the careless grace he can demonstrate, but when he straightens up, she can see the tense lines of his shoulders. “Does me being here bother you?”

Marinette pauses. “Not really.” And that’s the truth when she gets to the heart of it. Somehow. "At least you knock. And you compliment the food we have in the bakery. And you're pretty fun to be around when you're being chill and not on a three year old's sugar high."

A grin tentatively begins on his face. "I'm always chill."

Marinette snorts, relieved. That one time he nearly got eaten by a giant goldfish begs to differ. "Keep telling yourself that, hotshot," she says, plopping back down in her chair.

"And, princess."

"Hm?"

"You're pretty fun to be around, too."

"Points for originality, but thanks."

And Chat once told her (as Ladybug) that he still suspects she's actually five thousand years old ("Not that there's anything wrong with that! Still looking good, my lady!”), so that's that.

Some things are meant to happen slowly. For Marinette, that's her getting used to Chat casually dropping by and lounging in her room like Alya once a week—sometimes less, sometimes more— playing video games with her—on mute so her parents don't suspect a thing—like Adrien, and maybe laughing at B-rated movies like with Nino.

It's different, good kind of different in a way that Marinette is still trying to pin down exactly how. He calls her 'princess' instead of 'my lady'. She still calls him mon minou when she feels like it. He still has a neverending trove of puns that he says to Marinette as Ladybug and then repeats to Marinette the civilian later when they meet. They still banter in between everything they do, but only this time, there’s no akuma, no magical time limit that has them rushing to the nearest hiding place.

(It's kind of unfair, she'll admit, being able to one-up Chat in this arena, knowing him as he is around Ladybug and just Marinette, but someone's gotta deal with it as long as secret identities are being kept secret.)

“What are you doing for the holidays?” Marinette asks one night when they’re sitting at the terrace, over which is an overhanging tarp she always sets up in winter to make the spring clean-up easier. It was almost two-thirty in the morning last time Marinette checked, but at least she’s already on Christmas vacation. She’s immune to coffee though, so she’ll be stumbling around if she wakes up any earlier than ten. Whenever she asks Chat about dealing with late nights, he usually waves off her concerns by mentioning the combined power of caffeine and concealer.

There's a soft cold wind gently buffeting snow into the world beyond, and there's a peaceful, hypnotizing quality to this kind of night that makes Marinette want to get her sketchbook and put the landscape tips Nathanael had shared with her to good use. She's rather content staying here for the meantime though, with a jacket and scarf over her pajamas, Chat in even more layers than she is, and two steaming mugs of hot chocolate between them on the bench.

"Hoping that my father and Na-- well, you know-- aren't too busy to spend Christmas with me. Hopefully. And my friends-- I think I got invited to a party?"

"You think?"

"I mean, they kind of announced to the class that they're having a party but it was kind of general. So yeah, I think."

"You're invited."

"Good to know," he says wryly.

“How about we do a thing of our own?” Chat adds after a moment, his hands cradled protectively around his mug, still full because he always waits for it to cool down to just above lukewarm and because he tries to leech off the heat for as long as he can. “Like our own Christmas party? Since you don’t wanna go to mine.”

_(“Do you offer to show off your secret identity to everyone who lets you in their bedroom, or is it just me?”_

_“There’s Ladybug. There’s you.”)_

“My parents told me to never go with strangers,” Marinette says primly, but she snorts afterwards. “What about you? Try entering the front door for once, you know. Did you know we’ve got life-sized cardboard cutouts of Ladybug and Chat Noir—“

“Oh, I definitely know that—“

“—and it would _definitely_ bring more customers in if you’d sign yours.”

“Princess,” Chat gasps, bringing a hand to his heart in mock-hurt. “I feel so used. And _you_ —“ he pokes her cheek with the flat side of his claw, “—don’t really notice that I come in a lot during working hours? I’m wounded. So, so very wounded.”

Marinette frowns for a moment. Her classmates visit regularly when she’s helping her parents out, and to her eternal delight, Adrien now accompanies the Gorilla when he’s buying snacks and waves at Marinette from the other side of the counter. Their regulars are constant, and newcomers come in waves during the holidays and tourist season, but she doesn’t remember seeing someone she’d pin down right away as Chat.

“Anyhow,” she says, going back to the original topic. “Why don’t you just meet me up here on Christmas Eve? Maybe not exactly at midnight; my parents are going to watch the fireworks up here. But I can put up Christmas lights on the railings, and you’d get hot bread and for once. Maybe I can smuggle some cake too. That is, if you’re not busy—“

“I’d love to!” Chat’s eyes are practically sparkling. “And how do you feel about ice skating?"

Marinette raises an eyebrow. "At the hour you're usually coming by to see me? All the rinks are closed, Chat."

"Frozen ponds."

"We're not going to die from crashing through the ice and catching _hypothermia_."

Chat laughs, a full bodied laughter that’s mostly air from how he’s trying to keep his voice down for Marinette’s sake. Marinette is equal parts surprised, indignant, and fascinated in a way that makes her think about how laughter is a good look for people. Laughter is a good look on Chat, and for now, she’ll let it slide that it’s unfortunately at her expense.

She raises an exposed wrist to her cheek. Her face is burning.

“Oh, do you wanna go back inside already?” Chat doesn’t let the action pass by unnoticed. “You kinda look weird. Here.”

Ah. Marinette blinks. His hands are still warm from the mug when he cups her face, peering into her eyes. Another thing that hasn’t changed either.

“Yup. Weird. I have to go now anyway, and you should go back inside.”

“I’ll be fine.” She wiggles gently out of his grip. “I’m still gonna do clean up. You can go on ahead.”

“Okay then.” Chat nods. “But you better take care of yourself, okay?”

“You’re not also the best at self-care, so the same goes for you,” Marinette mutters.

“Well, yeah, but—“ Chat scratches the back of his head, seemingly self-conscious. “You’re a really important friend to me, just so you know.”

“I know,” Marinette replies immediately. It’s one of the things she doesn’t doubt about Chat, whether it’s by his side in a battle or out here on a rooftop in the dead of the night. “I didn’t exactly expect a superhero to become my sleep-deprived buddy, but here we are.”

“Here I am,” Chat echoes with a happy answering grin.

That’s both their cues to end the night—or morning, really. Chat leaves with a wave before leaping onto the neighboring rooftops, and Marinette watches his outline become smaller and smaller against the dark skyline. Somehow, her self-conscious flustering comes slow this time, and with Tikki sleeping in her room (of course the kwami trusts Chat Noir too), she finds herself pacing the floor for a good few minutes before she tires herself out.

It’s quiet. All the carolers have gone to sleep. Actually, any person with sense should be asleep at this time.

Marinette takes steady breaths as she stands alone on the terrace, surveying the area. Her parents do have extra Christmas lights in storage, she thinks. They won’t mind her hanging those out here.

She still has a bit of drink in her mug which should have gone lukewarm by now. She goes back to sit on the bench, her heart just the slightest bit restless.

Maybe, she continues a trailed off train of thought. Maybe it’s the way that she knows that Chat has always been important to her, as a friend and a partner, and knowing things like his steadfast loyalty and near reckless bravery, but never knowing things like how he prefers wearing his green scarf over his blue one because the latter is his favorite, how he can recite the plot of random Sailor Moon episodes from memory, and how he likes going over to Marinette’s because it feels a little less lonely than late at night at his house.

That is, until now.

There is a thing here that is happening slowly. Marinette isn't quite sure what it is yet, but there are things that she didn't know of before--like the outcome of wrapping Chat Noir in a blanket, yanking him into her house to feed him pastries, and being with him as he can’t with Marinette-as-Ladybug or as Marinette-as-Ladybug won’t allow herself to—that she knows of now.

She takes one last sip of hot chocolate, and breathes out.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from outlaws by alessia cara
> 
> this was originally part of a longer fic where the concept was basically adrien and marinette using their superpowers for sneaking out at night a la american high school movies, ft. conversations with the whole love square, but exams kicked my ass so i had to limit the scope of this fic. and their-destinys-writer requested marichat. writing this made me warm up more to that side of the love square, and i hope you all (@their-destinys-writer: merry christmas!!!) enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed making it.
> 
> find me on tumblr @pallasjoannas


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